


Make You

by marzipan (orphan_account)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Amnesia, M/M, ds themes and dubious everything warning for ch6, jim pov, lying liars who lie, mindfuckery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-11
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-03-29 19:48:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13934043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/marzipan
Summary: Jim Moriarty and Sherlock Holmes meet on a rooftop.A third person, the entirely wrong person, gets shot.the story ends on a bit of a mindfuckery note so if that's your jam maybe, idk, skip the epilogue because it issappy af





	1. Chapter 1

The first time Jim Moriarty meets the British Government it's, of all places, in a bar.

 

They're at a reputable enough hotel, to be fair, but it sounds like the start of a joke nonetheless.

 

Jim saunters up to the man who's foiled his last five plans, fully intrigued, and he can't say he saw any of this coming.

 

For one, he's so unassuming it's hard to believe he's at all important.

 

"You wanna get out out here?" Jim says, jerking his head toward the door, as he slides into the seat beside Mr. Mycroft Holmes and leans an arm onto the bar.

 

He twirls the lollipop in his mouth around, the cheap kind doctors give children, and looks him up and down. He's young, can't be more than half a decade his senior. Possibly even less. He looks like he doesn't get nearly enough sun.

 

Mr. Holmes frowns at him, and Jim grins.

 

He's so prim and proper, in his pressed shirt and handkerchief, that Jim wants to ruffle his feathers.

 

After a long moment, Holmes finally speaks to him.

 

"Have I offended you in some way?" he asks.

 

He has no way of knowing who Jim is, but evidently Jim's intent to provoke was clear enough.

 

"I'll give you one point for that," Jim says, crossing his legs and leaning back on the bar to survey the rest of the room. After a moment he glances over again at the frowning, taller man and offers a hand.

 

"You can call me Jim," he says. Holmes stares at the proffered hand for a hair too long a moment to be polite, but then he shakes. He's so delicate.

 

So buttoned up.

 

Jim wants to make him scream.

 

He doesn’t get a chance that first meeting, though, because Holmes “gets a call” he urgently needs to take and steps out, leaving the man he’s just met at the bar without so much as a spoken goodbye. He nods and stands and leaves Jim to sit alone with his sucker, wondering how long it will take for Holmes to notice his missing wallet.

 

No dice.

 

When Jim stands, minutes after Holmes has already left the premises, he reaches for the leather wallet and flips it open, only to find that there is nothing of note inside. Two bills, and a receipt for a pocket square.

 

Jim raises an eyebrow.

 

-

 

He visits the tailor’s where the pocket square was purchased a few weeks later, and crashes a suit fitting as Holmes stands before a triptych of mirrors.

 

“Three piece suits on a government salary?” he asks.

 

Holmes gives him a tight, bland smile. “A present of sorts.”

 

Jim applauds. “What are we celebrating? Big promotion?”

 

Holmes inspects his cuffs. “A drug bust.”

 

Jim freezes, just a hair, barely perceptible, before he continues to pace the little fitting room, circling Holmes like he’s prey.

 

Oh, they’re just going to come out and say it, are they?

 

Well he _does_ like a forward opponent.

 

“Oh?”

 

“Yes, and you’d know all about it, wouldn’t you?” Holmes replies. His tone is so bored, so unaffected, that Jim’s not sure whether he’s playing or not.

 

Jim puts on a big grin anyway.

 

“And here I thought you didn’t even enjoy the job!” he says, faux jubilant.

 

“What makes you think I enjoy cleaning up your messes?” He’s still inspecting his suit, barely paying Jim any attention. Jim catches his eye in the mirror.

 

“Dear me, Mr. Holmes, inviting me into your _dressing room_ and then telling me you haven’t enjoyed our little _dance_ , you’re sending me all sorts of mixed signals,” he trills, low and warning.

 

“Hardly a dance, seeing as you haven’t even persuaded me it’s worth the effort to make a move,” Holmes says, holding his gaze.

 

Jim raises his eyebrows, rocks back on his heels.

 

Trying to suss out Holmes’s motivations has been an exercise in futility, and he sees now that it’s because he’s profiled him all wrong.

 

He’s purely reactive, and passive even at that.

 

He’ll defend his territory if provoked, but for all that intelligence, all those _spies_ he has crawling around underground, aboveground, everywhere—that’s just insurance.

 

Here is a comfortable man who refuses to venture out into the wild unknown.

 

As such, Jim Moriarty is worth more to him active than taken down.

 

Sure, there are certain lines Holmes won’t tolerate to have crossed, on the behalf of the British Empire, perhaps, but other than that…

 

Not a threat.

 

Not the type to chase.

 

Jim determines this all in a matter of seconds, and decides Holmes isn’t worth his time.

 

-

 

In a way, Jim realizes several months, nearly a year later, it’s a comfort for him too.

 

He fires off a taunting text message and it brightens his day a bit knowing Holmes will suffer a headache overseeing security as all the tube lines are stopped in search of a bomb and a madman-scapegoat-moron who will no doubt end up arrested, but not tied back to Moriarty, never that.

 

Holmes rarely ever responds (twice in ten months) and never makes the first move. His objective has never been to take Moriarty in. Just to “keep tabs” on everything, like a good little office drone.

 

But it’s...nice.

 

Knowing someone is there.

 

And that it doesn’t compromise his freedom.

 

Because—the moment Holmes tries to reign Moriarty in, Jim resolves there will be hell to pay.

 

Except he never even needs to bring the issue up, because Holmes hardly cares.

 

There’s no fight in it.

 

But that in itself is a bit unsettling.

 

It makes Jim uneasy. Self-conscious, even.

 

It makes Jim _want._

 

For what? He’s not sure yet. (He still wants to make him scream.)

 

He texts Holmes as much, one day, after he sends the man running after him throughout a particularly complicated election fix. They were toe to toe all the way through—until Jim dropped everything two days before the end—his guy lost, runner up.

 

And then Jim went ahead with the assassination. He got the best of Holmes, after all.

 

 _It’s nice to know someone’s watching,_ he texts, a trite consolation.

 

The phone rings, and it’s so unusual for Holmes that Jim wonders whether he should pick up. He does, on the second ring.

 

“Don’t you think it’s sad, Mr. Moriarty, that the closest thing you have to a friend is someone on the other side?”

 

Holmes sounds bored, flippant even. But Jim knows better; Holmes is curious.

 

“Awwww,” he croons into the receiver. “Am I your arch-nemesis now or something? I’m so flattered!”

 

Holmes scoffs on the other end of the line.

 

“We certainly are not. I’m a minor government official and you’re a….freelancer. We aren’t _enemies_ , don’t be so dramatic,” Holmes says.

 

“We-ellll, what if I want to be more?” Jim asks. There’s a pause from the other end. He licks his lips and waits.

 

“I suppose you’ll have to earn it,” Holmes finally says.

 

Holmes doesn’t mean by upping the scale of the crimes, Jim is well aware, because he dismantles assassination plots with the same blase attitude as he’d take to a money laundering scheme or murder.

 

He takes little interest in Jim’s plotting, generally speaking (though he did commend a veiled reference to a favorite author once).

 

Jim hangs up.

 

If he can’t provoke praise or terror, he’s fine with rage. Severe unease, perhaps. Make it personal, and make it hurt. Make him pay attention.

 

-

 

 _Personal_ means Sherlock Holmes, he easily learns.

 

The younger brother is clever and keen. Too clever, perhaps; so much so that he will overlook simple solutions.

 

They’re nothing alike, the Holmes brothers, it’s stunning.

 

Sherlock is so easy to rile up. If only Mycroft paid as tenth of as much attention.

 

But—perhaps unsurprisingly—as soon as Jim shows interest in the younger brother, Mycroft gets involved.

 

Not in any discernible way, to most people. Mycroft dangles the hint of “Moriarty” in front of his younger brother, provoking him to start a chase.

 

Jim is appalled he’d be so careless. On the one hand, that fills him with rage. The suggestion that Jim is such a trivial concern that he is content to dispatch his younger brother to distract him.

 

On the other hand, he is very, _very_ entertained.

 

Sherlock is so easy to rile up, it’s delicious.

 

It’s a puzzle, a riddle, a game. And Jim so enjoys things that involve winning.

 

But there’s a nagging feeling in the back of his mind that reminds him— _this is just a distraction._

 

It almost works, too.

 

That look on Mycroft Holmes’s face when he asks for a story, a story about Sherlock Holmes.

 

Oh, he’s made his stomach turn. Jim had never done _that_ before.

 

It’s almost worth it.

 

-

 

But.

 

The more he plays, the more upsetting it is.

 

How well it’s working.

 

 _It's too easy_ , he whispers in his mind. A million things are abuzz; his mind is alight with ideas, planning several intricate crimes simultaneously. Some big, some small, most having nothing to do with the Holmeses at all, and won’t even ping their radar. Some _very_ much to do with the Holmeses, meant to make a splash.

 

Mycroft pays soooo much attention to Sherlock. It’s not fair.

 

 _Why him?_ that part of his brain supplies. _He’s ordinary_ , it screams, revolting. _It’s too simple._

 

It’s starting to blur the lines between a good distraction and a bad distraction, he muses, sitting in the back of a car. Sebastian Moran sits across from him. His trusty gun, the closest thing he has to a right hand man—but not second-in-command. There is a big difference. They’re brains-and-brawn here. There’s a separation; it’s not a hierarchy. There is no ladder to climb. There’s just Jim at the top, and then there is everyone else.

 

He’s sulking, he knows, but he answers the phone anyway when it rings.

 

“Mr. Holmes,” he purrs. “You’re not upset with me for playing with your brother’s pet, are you?”

 

Moran levels him a pointed look, and Jim ignores it. He’s been cocky lately. “Warning” him even, about how “attached” he’s gotten to this game of his.

 

How he’s been “passing up opportunities” to “play house with these second rate geniuses.”

 

Jim’ll have to address that later.

 

But he’s _wrong_ , because what’s life if you can’t have some fun? Even business isn’t just about _work_ . Jim takes on the _work_ because it suits his _mind_ , it gives him what he _needs._

 

He grins to himself as the elder Holmes rattles off his warning, pointed and concise, before hanging up again. He texts back immediately.

 

_It was so nice to hear your voice again._

 

-

 

The interest doesn’t start sexual.

 

It doesn’t even become _that_ , not for a long while. But it’s interest, and it’s Jim, so it couldn’t not.

 

It’s a bit...inseparable, for him.

 

Pleasure, in life, in all things, is meant to be taken. Jim firmly lives by this philosophy, and he finds he does his best work when he seeks out the pleasure of it.

 

It’s dull, otherwise. And who would want that?

 

His messages to the Holmses reflect as much, though they seem to go unappreciated. Sherlock finds them soooo disturbing (though also compelling to some degree, if we’re being honest). But with Mycroft, with the Iceman, no matter what Jim sends, the tone of the replies is the same.

 

That reserved, slight puzzlement he had on the day they first met. Wholly self-contained, and unaffected.

 

So Jim, naturally, has to rely on his imagination.

 

No, he doesn’t picture his arms around him, or anything so sweet. Nor his lips on his. Jim’s not naive, and Holmes is much too cold for that, though for all his icy facade he is very obviously a very lonely man.

 

No touching. That's a recurring fantasy. Mycroft Holmes a rumpled mess half out of his suit, half out of his mind. Just as quickly, the tables turn and Jim is jolting out of a dream where he's pinned down and taken apart with nothing but words. 

 

He might not be so averse to advances and being doted on once you break the barrier, Jim muses while setting up a darknet money transfer. It is a very thick, cold barrier, however.

 

He’s been turning down Jim’s advances for _years_ after all. And he can’t say the rejection doesn’t sting at least sometimes.

 

But maybe what hurts more is that he doesn’t even do it to be _mean._

 

Sherlock, though,

 

Sherlock is such a _weak spot_ for him that sometimes it makes Jim see red.

 

-

 

“You’re getting sloppy,” Moran tells him through the comms.

 

“Fuck off,” Jim replies, flipping the page of his newspaper. It’s not like his business has suffered any for his obsession. If anything, it’s flourished under Mycroft’s watchful eye. It makes Jim laugh.

 

-

 

Then—everything goes wrong on the roof.

 

The brothers have been working together all along. Jim already had his suspicions as much, but Sherlock’s answers only confirm it all.

 

One’s too easy, and the other’s too difficult.

 

He’s alone after all, isn’t he?

 

This can only end in death; Sherlock’s, his, or both.

 

Sherlock proclaims that he’s not ordinary, that he’s him, that he’s ready to burn the world to save his friends and Jim doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

 

Then Sally Donovan steps out onto the roof and he is a second away from shooting her for interrupting when she says,

 

"Mycroft Holmes has been shot."

 

His world tilts on its axis, and everything looks wrong.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Of course Sherlock Holmes had police in the building, standing at the ready, even though he promised to meet Jim alone.

 

Or maybe it was the other Holmes. Protecting his little baby brother as the risk of his brother’s friends’ lives.

 

It feels surreal. Jim glances at Sherlock and sees his own shock and surprise reflected back at him.

 

This wasn’t part of their plan, then.

 

This is not the right ending to the story.

 

Sherlock looks so lost, and isn’t that cute?

 

He’s not sure which one of them speaks first, but then the detective is explaining. Mycroft Holmes isn’t dead, just injured.

 

“Just.”

 

It’s a head wound, and he’s been rushed to a hospital.

 

“Only because a bodyguard was in the right place at the right time,” Sally Donovan says.

 

Was it a warning shot?

 

What does _she_ know, anyway.

 

Sherlock turns to Jim, rage clear on his face. But he seems to take pause seeing how off kilter Jim is.

 

Jim’s phone pings with a text alert, and he pulls it out  of his pocket.

 

_You got sloppy._

 

He is going to _carve out_ the sniper’s eyes and feed them to him.

 

“What did you do?!” Sherlock is yelling.

  
Jim doesn’t have time for Sherlock’s questions. They won’t be the right questions. He’s grabbed the detective’s arm instead.

 

“Where is he? Take me to him,” Jim says, low and dangerous. She tries to shake his hand off and goes for her gun when he only grips tighter, so he grabs both her arms, pinning them to her sides.

 

“Bring me to him,” he grits out. “I need to see him.”

 

“RIGHT NOW,” he yells, for good measure.

 

Behind him, Sherlock is quiet.

 

-

 

They’re at some private medical facility that’s well equipped enough to have its own surgical units.

 

Of course they do.

 

It’s even in some creepy underground bunker type looking thing.

 

Jim doesn’t even care this is eerily similar to where he was abducted to. He just follows without question.

 

-

 

Sherlock’s curiosity gets the best of him, as usual, and he’s somehow allowed Jim to strongarm his way into see Mycroft.

 

He’s expectedly suspicious of Jim Moriarty, sure, but Jim’s actions are so uncharacteristic, so off-script, that Sherlock is curious to see how this plays out.

 

It leads to the two of them standing by Mycroft Holmes’s bedside, taking in the surreal picture of Britain’s finest mind on life support.

 

He’s completely unconscious, and only just put into a private room after an hours-long surgery to extract the remains of a bullet.

 

Sherlock alternates between fretting about his brother and feeling intense unease at this version of Jim Moriarty before him.

 

“What is my brother to you?” he finally asks.

 

“Fear, regret, ...shame?” Sherlock lists. “Yet here you are. Just...watching.”

 

“You don’t know anything about our relationship,” Jim bites out.

 

He’s having a near panic attack, and no one notices.

 

He doesn’t know why.

 

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

 

Mycroft Holmes didn’t _get involved_. He wasn’t supposed to be _involved._

 

-

 

Jim is there for three days, and no one can make him budge.

 

Then day breaks on the fourth, and Mycroft Holmes’s eyes open and Jim sees sky for the first time in what feels like ages.

 

A battery of medical staff flood in and crowd the man, running checks, tests. It’s immediately apparent to Jim that Mycroft is lucid. His eyes are searching, and they scan the room, taking in everything.

 

But when they land on him, there’s only confusion.

 

He’s not sure what he expected.

 

Mycroft is disoriented; this is normal, he tells himself. Waking from a three-day, medically induced coma will do that to you.

 

Sherlock has barged in as well, along with the medical staff, and is bombarding his brother with questions and affectations. He’s scarcely moved these past few days as well, and what a sight the two of them must be.

 

Jim is quiet.

 

He has a bad feeling when Mycroft’s eyes land on the taller man, and nothing registers in them either.

 

“Would someone be so kind as to tell me where I am?” he rasps.

 

It’s like Jim is slowly becoming aware  of the searing core at his center. It starts as just a flicker, a shock to the system to great his brain hasn’t yet registered whether it is hot or cold.

 

“You’re in a private medical facility, Mycroft,” Sherlock answers, crowding a nurse out of the way to get closer to the bed. He peers down at his brother, taking stock of his condition himself.

 

The older man is quiet for a moment, then responds,

 

“Yes, and who are you? You’re clearly not my doctor, no, a relative perhaps?” in a very quiet voice.

 

The nurses and doctors and technicians continue their busy dance around the room, but Sherlock falls as still and silent as Jim has been.

 

Jim feels like he’s being consumed inside-out. This raw deterioration of his core hasn’t stopped for three days and now it’s like those paths carved in and out of himself have just been introduced to napalm.

 

He can see Sherlock isn’t faring any better.

 

“Mycroft, stop kidding,” Sherlock says, a nervous laugh in his voice, faux-amusement falling short. Even his tone is shakey.

 

Sherlock reaches for Mycroft, and Jim quickly takes Mycroft’s other hand, squeezes it. The gears in his brain whirr, and, quick-thinking, he slips something from his pocket into his hand.

 

Mycroft only gives him a curious, cursory glance before turning back to his brother, but then Sherlock is asking something, demanding, more like, of the doctors.

 

“A traumatic head wound like this can cause memory damage,” the doctor replies. “It’s not unheard of, but we will still have to assess the extent of the memory loss, and whether it is temporary.”

 

Sherlock continues to argue with the doctor for information, and Jim considers—

 

Is this still the same man?

 

Has Jim lost him already?

 

“Sherlock,” he tries calling out, but he’s not sure if the words make it beyond his lips. The consulting detective looks like he’s having a panic attack now too, and Jim can barely get a word out himself, and his questions have escalated into something where the doctors are now making placating gestures and asking for **_calm_**.

 

They all raise their voices far too high and it’s only when Mycroft finally winces that they all fall quiet again.

 

“Well that answers one thing,” Mycroft says in that dry raspy voice. Jim quickly grabs the plastic cup beside the bed to feed him an ice chip. Mycroft raises an eyebrow, but takes it.

 

“He’s my brother, but who are you?” he asks.

 

Before Sherlock can say anything, Jim turns his hand, the one he has clasped in Mycroft’s over.

 

“I’m your partner,” he replies. Ignoring Sherlock’s outburst, he shows Mycroft the rings they both have on their hands.

 

“He’s _lying_ ,” Sherlock interjects.

 

Jim is calm as he glances at Sherlock and then back at Mycroft as he answers.

 

“This is why we didn’t tell you, we didn’t think you’d take it well, and so I suppose we kept putting it off,” he says.

 

He sighs, reluctant, pained, and takes a seat beside the bed, without removing his hand or gaze.

 

“We met almost a decade ago, in passing at a hotel bar of all places,” he says. “Not a date.”

 

He almost chuckles. “Actually, we didn’t even get along at first. You might say work put us in each others’ paths.”

 

“But once we saw past our respective roles, well. Things picked up rather fast,” Jim says, keenly aware of Mycroft’s hand in his now. There’s no protest, and he cautiously runs his thumb over the knuckles. “Maybe too fast.”

 

“It wasn’t an easy relationship. We actually separated several times because the nature of our...work. This was,” Jim’s breath catches. “This was one of those times. We were in a bad patch before—this.”

 

He can’t look at Mycroft for this part.

 

“I...wanted to go public. You didn’t,” Jim says. Pauses. Swallows. “It was rather a big fight.”

 

He emanates such hurt and loss that even Sherlock is nearly convinced.

 

But is Mycroft?

 

He spins a remarkably realistic tale.

 

All of it is real. None of it is real.

 

The events are, perhaps, but the sentiment is all wrong.

 

He finally looks up. Mycroft’s expression is still considering. Not yet skeptical.

 

“This—this happening, was,” he exhales a long breath. “Eye-opening. It’s cliche, I know. But. Nearly losing you—”

 

“I can’t lose you,” he says, almost a whisper now. “I’m never leaving you again, I can’t leave you again.”

 

Mycroft stares. Sherlock stares.

 

The medical staff discretely work around them.

 

“He’s lying,” Sherlock intones, less emphatic and less sure this time.

 

Mycroft takes a long look at their joined hands.

 

“I know that ring,” he finally says. Then he looks at Jim. “I believe you.”

 

-

 

Against all odds, Jim finds himself en route with Mycroft to his home. The doctors had said being surrounded by familiar things would help with the memory issue, recovery at home was not a terrible idea.

 

Sherlock was probably listed as his next of kin, but Jim’s surprise reveal complicated that. By the time anyone thought to check, he would have at least some of the proper documentation turn up in searches, but his story was far from airtight.

 

Jim doesn't even know what his endgame was here.

 

But he isn't about to pass up on the opportunity. At the very least, something interesting should turn up from being invited into the Iceman’s home.

 

-

 

Jim argues that he should get to care for Mycroft regardless of whether Sherlock stays.

 

“There is no point in you _staying here_ ,” Sherlock snipes. “If you think he’ll just let a criminal into his home—”

 

“I’m not letting him out of my sight,” Jim shoots back, upset, and a bit possessive. “You’re hardly known for your bedside manner, I’m not sure how much you’ll be able to manage.”

 

Mycroft clears his throat and Jim forces back his comment.

 

“Of course it’s best for you two to be around, and no doubt your conversations will jog some sort of remembrance,” Jim says. He’ll have to come up with something, when that happens.

 

Sherlock narrows his eyes at him.

 

“I don’t know what you’re playing at,” he says, “but you’re not going to get away with it.”

 

-

 

Jim actually has a key, and roughly knows his way around the place, so at least there’s that in his favor.

 

Mycroft is still disoriented and a bit lost but even without any memory of his life or identity, he is far from stupid.

 

“I moved out a few months back,” he tells Mycroft, as Sherlock opens the door and Jim pushes his wheelchair in.

 

“A fight over…” he hesitates, glancing up at Sherlock before glancing away. “Your brother.”

 

“I’ll spare you the details, save the history of our fights for when you’re more settled, more healed. No need to dredge that up right now. I just want to focus on your recovery,” he says.

 

“Will you answer questions about us, if I ask?” Mycroft says.

 

“Of course. I’ll try,” Jim says.

 

-

 

Jim gets Mycroft a change of clothes and helps him into the master bathroom, but then Mycroft stops with his hands on the sink counter tops and looks at Jim.

 

“I’d prefer to do this alone,” he says, and Jim flinches, pulling his hands away as if burned immediately.

 

“Of course,” he says. After a beat, he asks, “Do you want me to call Sherlock if anything…?”

 

Mycroft considers it, then shakes his head.

 

After he closes the door, Jim stands motionless in the room for a good minute or two. Once the water starts running, he sinks down to sit on the edge of the bed. Puts his head in his hands.

 

Now he has to deal with taking down an overgrown henchman _for fuck’s sake._

 

Evidently the plans he’d had in place to keep his operations running for years on end wasn’t enough, the _compensation_ wasn’t enough, and one of his men got cocky.

 

He runs his fingers over his phone screen, over Sebastian Moran’s last text.

 

_You got sloppy._

 

He finally texts back.

 

_Oh Sebby, Sebby. What was it you thought you’d get out of this? Money? Power? Did you want to take the place of ‘Moriarty’?_

 

_There’s a price on your head now, darling, and it’s not going to end pretty for you._

 

He archives the thread. No sense in one of the Holmeses accidentally seeing something they didn’t need to.

 

But then he gets a text response back quicker than expected.

 

_Oh I think they’re all too busy to be hunting li’l ole me._

 

Jim snarls.

 

Moran is right; he did get sloppy. Three days tethered to a hospital bed and he can’t say with complete certainty what’s happened in his absence.

 

He checks, and it isn’t pretty at all.

 

Infighting. Crime rings going at each others’ throats. Rumors of his death hotly debated.

 

It’s nothing Jim can’t fix—though all this can’t be good for business.

 

More important is tracking down Moran, because Jim wants his revenge.

  



	3. Chapter 3

Jim ends up actually getting a few hours alone with Mycroft, as Sherlock, official next of kin and really the most qualified in this case, is called in to speak with the rest of the Government.

 

Because Mycroft Holmes isn’t just Mycroft Holmes; he’s practically an intelligence agency in and of himself. Which makes his loss of memory both a clearance issue and a risk to national security. 

 

So. Jim’s hours with Mycroft aren’t exactly unsupervised. They sit in some glorified waiting room while Sherlock meets with some Very Important People. There are several cameras, and a glass wall. 

 

There is also John Watson, for the first half hour. 

 

John Watson tells him (because John Watson goes everywhere Sherlock Holmes goes) that Sherlock probably would have thrown himself into work out of guilt or some inability to process emotion immediately after his brother was shot, if not for Moriarty. Out of suspicion, then, he stayed. Sherlock was keeping an eye on Moriarty as much as he was his brother. 

 

Or, as John Watson says Sherlock put it, “I can't be sure he won't knife my brother the second I turn around.”

 

Hence the babysitting.

 

Jim just gives John Watson a very bored look.

 

John also tells him, “I also still haven’t forgiven you for strapping a bomb to me, nor any of the other horrible things you did to Sherlock. I don’t care if you’re married to his brother.”

 

Jim wants to roll his eyes and say something very petty, but he doesn’t know how Mycroft will perceive it. He is a complete wildcard right now, and Jim very much wants to keep up the ruse for the time being. 

 

Then, he thinks, Mycroft will likely detect any ruse anyway. So Jim rolls his eyes, and says something very petty.

 

“Oh come on, you know I’m the most fun he’s had in years,” Jim drawls. John Watson bristles. Good.

 

From the corner of his eye Jim can see that Mycroft is quiet, observant. As he has been this entire time. So he addresses him.

 

“As you’ve likely noticed, we not in a very conventional line of work,” Jim says to Mycroft. “Sometimes great or terrible things happen, and nobody knows who is pulling at the strings from afar. That’s us.”

 

“And sometimes we pull a few strings to...entertain your otherwise very volatile younger brother,” Jim finishes, contemplative. “Though his history is his to tell.”

 

Then, still feeling petty, Jim takes out his phone and pulls up the only photo he has of him and Mycroft together, where Jim is taking a selfie and Mycroft is in the background rolling his eyes. The image is a couple of years old and very silly, enough that they looked completely unassuming to the passersby in front of the Supreme Court building. 

 

They had actually run into each other by coincidence, and Mycroft found it ironic while Jim thought it hilarious.

 

Jim texts the photo to Sherlock with no caption. Then he pulls his phone back out and follows the message up with a string of incomprehensible emoticons. Leave him to deduce  _ that. _

 

After John Watson leaves, presumably to either help or hold back Sherlock’s debating with the Powers That Be, Mycroft turns to Jim with a terrible question.

 

“Was I a bad man?” he asks. 

 

Jim has no good answer to that. 

 

“I have the sort of clearance that comes with being responsible for things the government wants no track record of,” Mycroft continues. “So my morals are already suspect.

 

“Adding to that, ‘suppression’ seems to be the theme and summary of my relationship with my closest family member. And evidently, as my brother has said, many times and very loudly, I’ve married some sort of criminal kingpin despite being on the side of the law,” Mycroft says. “My personal life seems just as...suspect.”

 

Jim holds his breath while Mycroft talks. Then sighs noisily.

 

“Well I can hardly give an objective answer to that, can I?” he replies, short. 

 

Mycroft thinks it over. 

 

“No, I suppose not,” he says.

 

“As for my character reference,” Jim says with another eyeroll, “I’m a financial consultant. A very discreet, private financial consultant. Who happens to have not very publicly known ties to a great deal of….bankers and such, who were or weren’t implicated in the financial crisis. There is a great deal of public sentiment about these types of matters, I’m sure you understand.”

 

Sure, he’s helped with things like murders and armed robberies and even some fielding of information for terrorist cells. Illegal at heart, maybe, but they were poetic in design. 

 

Elegant, even. 

 

Not just anyone could off their cheating husband by tampering with the mistress’s psychiatric medication, resulting in a brilliant series of events where she left him bleeding out on the bed.

 

Or time a bank robbery down to the very second so that the robbers swept in and out and were gone just mere moments before the police arrived, the only evidence left on the premises all false clues designed to lead the police back to their own station.

 

Or organize the leaking of information pertaining to national security in a way that exposed the information he was paid (by terrorists, sure) to uncover while at the same time implicating and publicly humiliating a corrupt official. 

 

And it was completely impossible to link any of it back to Moriarty. 

 

Mycroft’s expression is impassive, which only makes Jim sulk.

 

“It’s no different from being a  _ lawyer _ these days,” he says. He could play boring. He could play ordinary. To a point. 

 

“I see,” is Mycroft’s only reply. 

 

Jim has no idea whether Mycroft buys it or not.

 

“What do you remember?” Jim asks, hesitant.

 

Mycroft’s brows furrow, and his eyes land on Jim’s ring.

 

“The clearest memory I have is more of an impression,” he says. “I suppose I was in the middle of doing something risky and dangerous when this happened, though it doesn't take a genius to connect the dots between that and gunshot. But, that is the only thing I remember. The sense of risk is...still palpable.”

 

Jim reaches for Mycroft’s hand before catching himself and drawing back. If Mycroft finds his reaction strange, he gives no such indication. 

 

The doctors had asked the standard set of questions to determine if Mycroft had lost a specific amount of time, but it seemed that was not the case. The year and current state of events was neither a surprise nor of particular interest to this blank-slate Mycroft Holmes. But he had no idea who he was.

 

“Beyond that, I find myself, my own life, unrecognizable,” Mycroft says.

 

Jim’s phone buzzes, and he sees Sherlock’s texted back.

 

_ Mere coincidence! SH _

 

Sherlock even makes a face at him through the glass wall.

 

-

 

Later, in the kitchen, Jim’s hand brushes against Mycroft's as he hands him a cup. It occurs to him that he hasn't touched him at all these two days, not since he helped him stand when they first got back to Mycroft's home.

 

It occurs to him he has the opportunity now to rewrite the reality of the man standing before him.

 

Make it seem natural, and he will expect that it is.

 

He could have the Iceman. Do as he wished to Mycroft Holmes, mind, body, and soul. 

 

Curious thought, that.

 

But Jim continues to keep his distance.

 

He's supposed to be sorry, after all. 

 

“Occasionally,” Mycroft says, “I will see something and it just seems  _ right _ , as if I know it.  But it doesn't mean I can place it.”

 

“Like what?” Jim asks.

 

“Like you, “ Mycroft says.  “Like Sherlock.”

 

Jim twists at the ring on his finger. He’s nearly forgotten about it, a trinket thing he picked up and paid cash for from the accessories section of one of the tailor shops Mycroft frequented, hence the recognition, he supposes. It was a prop he was carrying at the time, meant to be used for a character that he would now never need to play. 

 

Mycroft's own ring, both Jim and Sherlock knew (or thought they did, until Jim’s reveal) was a decoy meant to make his job a bit easier.

 

It's been five days, then, since he's had contact with his network.

 

It’s utter  _ chaos _ .

 

Jim’s almost impressed.

 

He starts digging, and finds that it began with the Russians, who were fed information about a nuclear deal that would put them in a disadvantageous position in the defense arena. 

 

To retaliate, they started pulling tentative trade deals, then putting the Chinese in a precarious pinch. And the Russians did so without the aid of Moriarty, obviously, but they were being advised by  _ someone _ , and that  _ someone  _ either intentionally or unintentionally led them to leave a trail of evidence.

 

Evidence aside, their actions prompted the Chinese to scramble to recover their assets, which left some of the smaller gangs and underground rings unsupervised. More mess. More trails. More  _ evidence _ if you knew how to look. 

 

All the more so because they were encroaching on marked territory, meaning there was about to be some pushback on local soil. 

 

It was as if whoever was behind this was very carefully drizzling a spiral of accelerant on already dry and flammable material, and now all they were waiting to do was to strike a match and watch the empire go up in flames from the island to the continent to Eurasia. 

 

All the while, no one can verify whether Moriarty is dead or alive. That's the worst, because to regain control of the unwieldy group, it means he'd have to prove to  _ them  _ he's who he says he is. Such is the downside of building a network on reputation.

 

That's the summary, anyway. It's much more detailed than that. Meticulous enough to be similar to his own handiwork, though the style and motive are worlds apart. 

 

He hasn't seen this signature before, either.

 

But something about it feels just a tad familiar.

 

What was Moran playing at?

 

If Jim was meant to be dead, this would only put Moran at a disadvantage if his aim was inheritance. And then if he had doubts that Jim would ever take his own life, then all this did was put him out of employment. 

 

Jim surveys the network of information and, on second glance, now that he has the bigger picture, he  _ is _ impressed.

 

A great deal of care went into this planning. Effort, too. 

 

And Jim can’t even pin down Moran’s current location now.

 

Who would have thought dumb muscle would be able to stay two steps ahead?

 

No, no, Moran had to have been working with someone. Someone who had offered him a very lucrative out, in exchange for his information and his help. 

 

-

 

Meanwhile, Sherlock is running about, trying to catch the shooter. 

 

Jim knows that if Moran employed his exit strategy meant for keeping an eye on Mrs. Hudson, not Mycroft, during the “showdown,” there would be no clues for Sherlock to find. A pure dead end. 

 

But with Sherlock’s above-average powers of reasoning, he was still sure to realize sooner or later that someone from Moriarty’s network had acted without Jim’s express permission, leading to Mycroft Holmes’s getting shot.

 

He's curious as to what Sherlock will turn up,  and sets about putting a detail on the consulting detective and a note to take advantage of Mycroft's CCTV access later.

 

At that, he takes pause. 

 

Is he taking advantage of Mycroft, really?

 

He steals a glance at the man, and his heart catches in his throat when Mycroft returns his look with a small, hesitant smile. 

 

He has never directed such a look at him before. 

 

It's open and unsure and a bit shy and his Mycroft, the Mycroft Holmes he knew, never  _ ever, _ not even when he spilled his brother's story, once showed him such vulnerability.

 

A complicated cocktail of emotions bubble beneath his skin because on the one hand it is a victory but on the other hand it is such a  _ hollow  _ one because this might not even truly be the same man. Would that man ever return? Did he, realistically, still exist?

 

“Which one of us proposed?” Mycroft asks haltingly, and if Jim didn’t know better, if Jim couldn’t see how unlike Mycroft the curious and hopeful expression paired with the question is, he might be a  _ little bit _ suspicious. But really, the whole thing is  _ so _ unlike him that he’s, actually, quite suspicious. 

 

_ It’s called paranoia, _ his brain supplies unhelpfully. It’s what’s driven him to build his network so  _ carefully _ , he shoots back. And up until a few weeks ago, it had held steady. 

 

And so because Jim, unlike Mycroft, has always picked  _ fight _ when his fight-or-flight instincts kicked in, he slowly takes a seat across from Mycroft at the dining table with his own cup, and holds his gaze.

 

“You did,” he replies, then takes a sip of his tea. “But we’re complicated, you and I, so I feel I need to explain this all with a caveat. I’d said I wanted more and I fear you misinterpreted it as an ultimatum, and proposed.”

 

Jim looks at his own ring now. “Obviously, I wasn’t unhappy with the outcome. But my suspicions that I rushed you did make things...difficult at times.”

 

“And you can imagine how I must have taken things in light of the fact that you were more readily able to marry me than to introduce me to your family as even someone you were dating,” Jim adds. 

 

“We’re awfully self-aware for a dysfunctioning couple,” Mycroft says. Jim gives him a wry smile.

 

“I guess you can’t take my word for it.”

 

“No, no, I trust you,” Mycroft says all too easily. 

 

Jim squints at him and takes another drink. Is this what guilt feels like?

 

Mycroft looks surprised for a slight moment, then almost crestfallen. “I suppose it’s strange to discuss this with me, now.”

 

“Am I like him?” Mycroft then asks.

 

“Who?” Jim responds, startled. “Don’t talk about yourself like that, it’s creepy.”

 

Mycroft purses his lips. 

 

“Tell me what I’m like, then,” he says. “Tell me what you liked about me.”

 

“What I love about you,” Jim insists. 

 

“Fine.”

 

Jim feels an irrational spike of anger, but on whose behalf he doesn’t know. Is he angry at losing something he never had? Angry that he and Holmes no longer fit? Jim is made of jagged edges, but that doesn't mean he's looking for someone to smooth them out.

 

He stops the emotion in its tracks. He doesn’t need this. This is just a character he’s playing. He can get absorbed, but then he can get out. There is always an out.

 

“I mentioned we didn’t get along at first, didn’t I?” Jim starts. He looks away, then makes himself look Mycroft in the eye. “Because I realized off the bat you could go toe to toe with me. You could always call me out when I got in over my head.”

 

He gives Mycroft a look, both fond and sarcastic. “I’m the top of my field, you know. I’m not used to people who don’t go my way.”

 

“But then after a while...I realized you say any of that to judge me. You were good enough to keep up, but you also let me be me,” Jim continues, contemplative now, like he hasn’t vocalized this before. He realizes, then, that he hasn’t. He’s never had anyone to talk to about Mycroft Holmes before. 

 

“I liked that,” he adds, then laughs. “Crave it even. You’re brilliant. And you so rarely share yourself with the world, with anyone. But you would always share your thoughts with me. You were mine.”

 

Then he says, as if it just occurred to him, “I don’t expect you to feel any of this, or anything for me at all.”

 

“You don’t expect anything from me?” Mycroft asks curiously.

 

“I don’t expect I’m entitled to much at this point,” Jim states. 

 

Mycroft thinks it over, and appears to accept it. 

 

And then suddenly Jim is terrified, because now it feels too real.

 

“None of this seems particularly fair,” Mycroft says, in a factual manner.

 

It breaks Jim out of his bout of melancholy and he snorts at that, the idea that things, that life, is somehow meant to be fair. Mycroft seems to find it funny too. Then Jim sobers up.

 

“In a way, you're my oldest friend,” Jim says seriously. “And I'm willing to be whatever you need right now.”

 

That's a lie, the little voice in his brain reminds him. He's doing this all out of pure selfishness.

 

-

 

Jim pulls up Mycroft Holmes’s CCTV feeds later, when Mycroft himself is asleep, and looks for Sherlock Holmes.

 

It occurs to him, that playing his part as brother-in-law, he should offer to help Sherlock find the shooter, given the resources at his disposal, and he should do it soon.

 

If he waits much longer one of the Holmeses might start to catch on to the fact that he is losing standing as Moriarty. 

 

And what is he going to do about that, anyway?

 

He has a plan of attack for reinstating his position of power. But he also has courses of action should he want to retire instead, in a very permanent fashion. 

 

He hasn’t decided yet. He wants to see whether Holmes has a chance of recovery first, and the man has a medical appointment coming up. 

 

Jim is watching sped up recordings of Sherlock traipsing through the city, into dark back alleys to clandestine cafes for meetings and then, curiously, several hours in, Sherlock is meeting someone alone.

 

Jim raises an eyebrow and rewinds—where did John Watson go?

 

Five minutes earlier gives him the answer, as John Watson and Sherlock Holmes appear to have arrived somewhere for dinner and the cab speeds off, and then Sherlock looks like he’s gesturing and saying he’s forgotten something, and will be right in.

 

John Watson is exasperated (but maybe that is just his face), but evidently they were meeting people; the detective inspector and the pathologist. So the flatmate gamely makes an appearance to apologize for the both of them.

 

Jim fast-forwards the video back to where Sherlock got into the unmarked vehicle, alone, to speak to a source.

 

Jim sits up so fast in his chair that he worries for a second he’s made too much noise.

 

No, not just a source.

 

Even from the intentionally obscured angle and the partial image the frame provides, Jim knows who that is.

 

That man Sherlock is speaking to in the vehicle is Moran. 


	4. Chapter 4

“I want to try,” Mycroft says, startling Jim as he's drying his hair with a towel. He turns to see Mycroft standing behind the threshold of the guest bedroom door he'd left open.

 

“This,” Mycroft elaborates. “Us.”

 

Jim can feel his heart hammering in his chest as he tries to decide what to do next. He finds himself nodding, several times, but at a lost for words.

 

Mycroft doesn't say any more either, just gives him another one of those too-vulnerable little smiles, and ducks back into the hallway, making his way downstairs for breakfast.

 

Jim sinks down to the floor beside the bed and blindly gropes at the nightstand for his phone. Then he calls Sherlock.

 

-

 

Sherlock barges in halfway through breakfast and Jim feels a deep sympathy for him when an expression of deep horror passes over Sherlock’s face as Mycroft—this new Mycroft—welcomes him in with an apology and rushes to fix Sherlock a plate, rather than admonishing him for breaking in and rudely interrupting a conversation.

 

The younger brother takes a seat, disquieted, and even picks at his toast a bit. Jim shoots him an _I feel ya_ expression, and Sherlock just gives him dead eyes in return.

 

“I’m here to talk to Jim,” Sherlock says too loudly, once they’ve mostly finished. If Mycroft finds this strange and unsettling, there is absolutely no tell.

 

“Let’s continue discussing what you brought up this morning a bit later,” Jim suggests, and Mycroft nods, retiring to his library, just down the hallway.

 

After Mycroft leaves, the two of them sit at a virtual impasse for a few moments.

 

Then Sherlock breaks the silence.

 

“You two seem....cozy,” he says. He’s seen how comfortably they move around each other, and he’s trying very hard to ignore the fact that they’ve been using separate bedrooms and bathrooms yet smell of the same shampoo.

 

Instead of responding, Jim pulls out his phone and sets it on the table, turning it on to show a snapshot of a CCTV still: Sherlock meeting Moran in the car.

 

Sherlock’s eyes dart to the hallway, then back to the phone.

 

“You can’t possibly fault me for suspecting you had a hand in the attempt on my brother’s life,” Sherlock says, voice low.

 

Jim raises an eyebrow, and Sherlock continues.

 

“You can’t have imagined it would be impossible for me to find a member of your network, your inner circle, or as close to it as one gets,” Sherlock says.

 

“Really,” Jim replies, expression hard. “And what did Moran here have to say, after you sought him out?”

 

“Lies, mostly,” Sherlock replies. Well, wasn’t that an unexpected bit of honesty?

 

“And he’s not a very good liar,” Sherlock continues. “Evidently your hired gun knows you’re here, but not why.”

 

“He was also strangely worried about the state of affairs in your absence and didn’t seem to realize how suspicious that makes him sound,” Sherlock says.

 

“So tell me,” Sherlock says, “What could an idiot like him have done to tamper with a network you built so carefully even my brother hasn’t been able to get his hands around it?”

 

Jim leans back in his chair.

 

“You tell me,” he replies shortly.

 

“What?”

 

“You’re right, Moran’s not nearly smart enough to affect anything. Yet he’s running around telling you of all people that my empire’s in disarray? Don’t be obtuse, Sherly, it doesn’t suit you,” Jim says. “How long have the two of you been working together?”

 

Another impasse.

 

Then the obvious dawns on them, and the two geniuses are suddenly very glad no one is around to see the idiocy displayed just a moment ago.

 

“There’s a third person involved,” Sherlock murmurs.

 

“You never were that cunning,” Jim groans into his hands. “Couldn’t have been you.”

 

Sherlock glares, but then rolls his eyes.

 

“So what now? Business falling apart after being away for less than a week, hm? Can’t imagine you’re at good at your job as you’ve advertised, then,” Sherlock says.

 

“There’s a mole somewhere,” Jim sighs. “Obviously information has leaked.”

 

Sherlock pulls out his phone and starts texting. Um, rude.

 

“What are you doing?” Jim asks, offended. They were _clearly_ in the middle of a _conversation._

 

“Texting John, obviously,” Sherlock replies.

 

 _Obviously_ , Jim mouths back at him. Another eye-roll. “Is that your catchphrase?”

 

“You used it yourself only just a moment ago,” Sherlock says simply.

 

“And what, pray tell, are you texting Johnny?” Jim asks.

 

“Telling him to hurry over,” Sherlock replies. “We’ve got a case to solve.”

 

“Um, excuse me, I thought catching your _brother’s_ would-be killer was _somewhat_ _important_ to you,” Jim says.

 

“Yes,” Sherlock replies. “And to do that, we’ve got to untangle what’s gotten into your network and bollocksed it up. You’ve just become our new client.”

 

Jim expression is so done that Sherlock takes the opportunity to snap a photo.

 

-

 

After Sherlock leaves, Mycroft tells Jim he had been on the phone with a woman who goes by Anthea, who apparently is still on staff as his personal assistant. Evidently the two of them even had a plan in place if such an event should ever occur, and she is on personal leave for the next week to “arrange matters.” After that, she will contact him with further instructions.

 

Jim wonders whether if he could take Anthea in a fight. Both literally (physically) and figuratively (does she inherit Mycroft’s ability to call in favors?).

 

“It appears that, if after these two months I don't recover my memories, they would like me to take a role in the ministry of defense,” Mycroft tells Jim. “A way of keeping an eye on an asset, I suppose.”

 

Then he takes pause.

 

“I'm taking all these espionage-style happenings in stride. You too, it seems. Par for the course, then?” Mycroft asks.

 

“More or less,” Jim answers with a sigh.

 

He spends most hours of these days keeping Mycroft company, at arm’s length of course. It’s an interesting change of pace, but Jim doesn’t think he likes it much.

 

Right now there is the anticipation of an impending explosion and everything going tits up, but otherwise?

 

The two of the most powerful men in the country, sitting comfortably at home, with this quiet, domestic life?

 

It’s surreal.

 

It’s like death.

 

It puts him off just as much to see and realize that Mycroft doesn’t seem to belong in such a life either. There’s no trace of the man he knew, Jim thinks, when he sees him sit across from him at the dining table and crack a hardboiled egg now.

 

Once in a while, though, he catches just glimpse—when he skims the newspaper and makes a connection unobvious to most eyes, or when Jim mentions the origin of this or that wine or fare and Mycroft offers up a bit of obscure political trivia—and each time the bit of old recognition peeking through peters out as quickly as it came, with Mycroft even looking surprised at himself for knowing such a thing, for stating such cruel facts with such nonchalance.

 

Jim tries to not let his disquietness show.

 

But then sometimes,

 

Sometimes Jim forgets himself too.

 

He forgets, in those moments where Mycroft is present and deriding the French president for being so careless as to not have seen the evidence plainly in front of his face five weeks before a bomb scare and Jim is teasing him about knowing the details of a foreign country’s internal national security protocols.

 

Or when he pulls out a Tuscan wine and explains without realizing it the trouble he went through to procure the bottle, the _trip_ he’d had to take as a favor to a royal family friend, and Jim responds wryly that he still took less than a tenth of the number of steps lesser agents would have needed in order to get the job done.

 

Or when Jim spins one of his tales, but Mycroft’s eyes are on him now, not saying a word, but giving him his full attention.

 

Afterwards, they both always seem taken aback by themselves. Except Mycroft thinks it’s because he nearly remembered himself before forgetting again, and Jim knows it’s because he’s nearly forgotten himself altogether.

 

All that power and all that intellect, Jim thinks, and what a waste.

 

Perhaps persuading the man that it would be worthwhile to pursue more interesting vices could become Jim’s next project, he thinks, in a bid to cheer himself up.

 

-

 

But all things must come to an end, Jim realizes, sitting in an armchair in the living room of 221B Baker Street.

 

“So,” John Watson starts, pen and notepad at the ready. “‘Jim Moriarty.’ Could you spell that for me?”

 

Jim stares at John Watson and imagines the look on his face when he sticks him in an industrial freezer. The nerve. He imagines the expression frozen on his face for an eternity.

 

“Right, then, that’s a no,” John says, taking a note on the pad.

 

Jim turns to Sherlock.

 

“I came here to ask about Moran,” Jim says. “How you found him, where he is now, the works. Clearly, you didn’t track him down on your own.”

 

“Oh, he came to me,” Sherlock says, and his expression turns smug. “You’re, frankly, quite out of the loop these days, aren’t you.”

 

Jim does not have time for this shit, so he puts on the most deadpan expression he has.

 

“Guess not, now that I’m having my brains shagged out by your brother three times a day,” Jim says. “Now that we’ve made up and all.”

 

It is so hard not to laugh at Sherlock’s sudden and very, _very_ mortified expression. Jim barely manages. John Watson, clearly a lesser man, doesn’t even try.

 

Then Jim wonders whether he should disclose the fact that Moran was the shooter.

 

The look on Sherlock’s face when he learns _that_ , that he had his brother’s would-be killer in his grasp and then let him get away.

 

Or perhaps to save it for a more opportune time?

 

He twists his mouth up as he does a mental coin toss, then decides that delayed gratification is overrated and he’s going to spill the beans right now.

 

Jim gets up and buttons his jacket.

 

“Alright, I guess there’s nothing for me here, no point in consulting a _detective_ who couldn’t even _deduce_ that the source he was meeting with was the very man who shot his _very own_ brother,” Jim says. Then he does a half turn and heads straight for the door.

 

Three, two,

 

“You knew he shot Mycroft,” Sherlock says, not bothering to hide the anger.

 

one.

 

Jim peers over his shoulder. Oh, he was right. What a great expression.

 

“Mm-hm, and you just let him walk away,” Jim says, his voice full of mock pity.

 

“And you let it happen,” Sherlock says, somewhere between disbelief and outrage.

 

“No, I didn’t,” Jim replies severely, “and that’s the problem, isn’t it?”

 

“He’s somehow got it into his _head_ that he can, oh, I don’t know, build from the ground up a name for himself out of the ruins of my empire,” Jim says laughing, throwing his arms up.

 

He paces the room, carelessly fiddling with the personal artifacts littered around the flat.

 

“Of course, you wouldn’t know, would you. You get your cases from the man on the street, from the odd homicide the detectives down at the Yard are too dim to solve and have to shove in your lap,” Jim mutters. “For all you profess to love London, you have no idea how she _operates._ You know every nook and cranny but you miss the bigger picture.”

 

Sherlock rolls his eyes; he obviously disagrees. That much might be true. Sherlock sees the people and the  _life_ of London. Jim sees gears and levers and bugs to exploit.

 

Jim thinks back to when Moran could have started to turn, just as Sherlock asks, no demands,

 

“Start at the beginning.”

 

“It was you,” Jim says, not looking as Sherlock’s expression turns to one of mild surprise.

 

“You started digging and he said ‘that’s a waste of your time,’ even though I hadn’t even done anything yet, that was the first tell,” Jim says, recomposing the scene in his memory.

 

Sherlock purses his lips. “And then?”

 

“And then just as quickly, it left his mind. Because it was never his idea at all,” Jim says. “No, we’re not starting at the beginning, the beginning doesn’t help us find _him_ , it doesn’t help us get to the next stage of the game—”

 

“Is this a game, though?” John Watson interjects. They both look at him.

 

“Look, Mycroft Holmes, one of the most dangerous men, as you like to remind me, Sherlock, was shot in the head. Your brother was shot in the head. We’re trying to put away Moran, then, aren’t we?” he asks.

 

“Oh if we find him, I’ll take care of him myself,” Jim says.

 

“There is more going on here than that,” Sherlock insists.

 

“Is Moran dies, who profits?” Jim muses.

 

“What makes you think it’s a single person?” John asks.

 

“A conglomerate of crime bosses?” Sherlock says with a laugh. “Don’t be obtuse, John, they’d never be able to settle their differences long enough to plan together, let alone plan together _carefully._ ”

 

And why now? Jim thinks to himself. Moran would have been the only one who could have had a hint of what he was planning to do.

 

No one could have expected that Moriarty was going to die on that rooftop. Even Jim had been on the proverbial fence.

 

“Let’s pay a local drug lord a visit,” Jim says out loud instead.

 

“Why?” John asks.

 

Jim’s taken aback for a moment. He’s not used to have someone to explain his plans to. It’s strange. But kind of interesting? Hm.

 

“Because if my Tiger is still in town he’s probably called in a favor to stay in hiding,” Jim says, heading for the door.

 

-

 

They’re walking because it’s really not that far and Jim wants to catch Roberts by surprise and Sherlock starts shooting random questions at him like maybe he’ll be able to catch him off guard, as if he’s that bad an actor.

 

“Where did you and my brother go on your honeymoon?” is the first question, and it comes out of nowhere, as they’re going down the stairs of 221 Baker Street. Silly Sherlock, Jim thinks, sex isn’t a shocking subject to anyone but _you._

 

“Paris, and it was _horribly_ cliche, rose petals and all, because he said I couldn’t do anything the normal way and I wanted to prove him wrong,” Jim says, enjoying Sherlock’s grimace.

 

And then there is the obvious “who proposed?” and Jim is very smug when he answers, though he leaves out the ultimatum and insecurity bit.

 

“Who gets up in the morning first?” Sherlock asks when they turn the corner, like it’s a trick question, and Jim rolls his eyes.

 

“Both of us,” he says. “We’re not exactly heavy sleepers.”

 

Sherlock narrows his eyes at him. “Who buys the milk?”

 

Jim looks scandalized. “ _Neither,_  we’re _civilized._ ”

 

John looks completely lost, at that, but evidently decides this is his cue to join in as well.

 

“Um. Where was your first date?” he asks.

 

Jim smiles. “Theater. Greek tragedy. He kept quoting along, so I’d do the lines wrong. It was a laugh.”

 

John looks confused and Sherlock looks very frustrated and they’re in an alley, just about to enter through the back of a restaurant, when Sherlock suddenly yells at him,

 

“ _What is Mycroft’s favorite color?_ ”

 

They both stare.

 

“Sherlock, why are you yelling?” John says.

 

“ _Red_ ,” Jim replies with an incredulous look on his face. “Geez. Keep your voice down.”

 

Then he kicks in the door and the three of them go shake down a drug boss.

 

-

 

It’s like something out of a B-grade action movie, and they’ve each got guns pointed straight out as they make their way in.

 

The kitchen staff scatter, and they turn the corner and make it into Roberts’s private room.

 

The guards point their guns straight back, but they’ve gotten the drop on them and now it’s a standoff.

 

Jim briefly considers the fact that out of the three of them, John Watson is probably the only one who can reliably hit his target.

 

But it doesn’t matter, because it looks menacing enough and Jim drops Moran’s name and a few choice details and Roberts spills everything.

 

It’s not until afterward that reality hits them again and everyone has sort of a personal, mini-crisis. It was very much illegal, which John cares about even if Sherlock and Jim don’t. It was out  of Sherlock’s depth, even if it wasn’t for John or Jim. And Jim _never_ personally visited clients or former clients, even if John and Sherlock practically advertise their services in the sky.

 

All in all, it’s a very disquieting day.

 

-

 

Jim is helping Mycroft to bed when it happens.

 

Mycroft leans toward him, slow, and he can move away or otherwise dismiss what is about to happen, but Jim finds he can’t move, doesn’t _want_ to move.

 

Then, softly, testing the waters, Mycroft presses his lips to Jim’s, and Jim’s eyes flutter shut immediately. He tilts his head up but is just able to stop short of pushing for more, of leaning and pulling and deepening the kiss. He holds still, and doesn’t open his eyes again until Mycroft pulls back, nervous at what he might see on his expression.

 

It’s a sweet, private sort of look that Jim can’t quite name, but just as quickly it turns into surprise. He’s about to ask what’s wrong when Mycroft brings his hand up to Jim’s face. Then Jim realizes his eyes are wet.

 

He jerks himself out of Mycroft’s grasp and wipes the back of his hand across his eyes.

 

“I don’t—” he starts, but Mycroft interrupts him.

 

“I’m sorry I’m not him,” Mycroft says in the quietest voice.

 

Jim bites down on his lip—that’s not what he meant, it’s the other way around—but before he can say it, he’s out the door.

 

-

 

As uneasy as teaming up and barging into the den of some local crime lord like that was, it was very effective, and the trio finds themselves together at the drawing board once again.

 

Roberts had given up Moran’s whereabouts along with the information that he’d been given incentive by Moran to go after a group they’d had a peaceful rivalry with, to cause some trouble, in exchange for a seat at the table when the war got big enough that it all had to come down, and new order would be called for.

 

To Roberts, it sounded like when all in London fell, the Russians would be brought in, along with the Italians, the Chinese, and the Iranians, in some sort of international round table where they would pull at the strings of global crime.

 

To Jim, it sounded like a lie. And not even a very good one. Roberts didn’t even have the brains to run _London_ , where did he think he was going to get, being in the same room as the _Chinese_?

 

“This is the dumbest thing I have ever heard,” Jim says, as the three of them take in the complicated diagram they’ve mapped out on the wall of 221B Baker Street.

 

Sherlock taps on the photo of O'Flaherty.

 

“We’ve got to infiltrate the Irish mob next,” he says.

 

“Eh. Pass,” Jim replies, typing away on his phone.

 

“What?” Sherlock shoots back, offended.

 

“We,” Jim says, “are going to tell the Italians that the Iranians have reneged on the deal and they will make A Lot of Noise, which will spook the Chinese off the deal and have the Irish and the English at each other’s throats.”

 

He looks up from the phone. “Did I say we? I mean me, because I’ve already done it, the messages are going out, the fake footage is going out, and all we have to do is wait for O’Flaherty to shoot himself in the foot and expose where Moran’s gone next, because he’ll be upset that he’s done Roberts a favor and now the rat he took in has turned on him.”

 

John looks a bit impressed, but Sherlock looks...disgusted?

 

“Oh my God,” Sherlock says, taking a step back. “You’re just as lazy as he is, good God, you two really are suited for each other.”

 

Then he flops back dramatically onto the couch, looking artfully tousled and bored.

 

-

 

Jim and Mycroft “try.”

 

Jim points out restaurants and shops while they’re in the car, making up or embellishing memories the two of them are supposed to have shared. He shows him photos, not of them, but of places abroad they’ve supposedly been together. They try out little “dates,” they try out getting to know each other all over again.

 

Jim is sitting beside Mycroft on the sofa, the two of them watching a movie, when he finally notices.

 

It’s the smallest thing, really.

 

Just a laugh.

 

Mycroft being familiar with the plot despite not having any recollection of it could have been chalked up to any number of things. Movie plots aren’t all that wild, it doesn’t even take a genius to predict what will happen. Lines too, lines are cliche and he could have known what one or two of the characters was about to say and even accurately quote a line before it happened.

 

But no, he laughs at one joke just a little too early, and Jim turns to stare at him like he’s never seen him before.

 

Mycroft, of course, notices immediately.

 

He seems reluctant to move his eyes from the screen, but after a second or two he relents, and glances at Jim.

 

“You’ve been faking,” Jim accuses in not more than a whisper.

 

“Ah, well. Of all things, my favorite film gave me away,” Mycroft responds easily, not even trying to deflect. “I suppose sentiment will do that to you.”

 

Jim scours his memory for signs, for clues.

 

_Jim is planning his first puzzle for Sherlock Holmes when Sebastian gets a text message and reads it, waiting for Jim’s briefing._

 

_After Jim explains the plan, he asks about some media mogul’s job offer, which Jim dismisses. He gets three such requests a day, and he can handle blackmail jobs any time._

 

_This is more fun._

 

_“He’s paying an awful lot,” Sebastian adds._

 

_Jim brushes it off. Sebastian never brings it up again._

 

“How long?” Jim asks, looking haunted.

 

“Since the beginning, more or less,” Mycroft says easily, still watching the movie. Jim isn’t watching. He’s just staring at Mycroft’s profile.

 

_Jim is sending Mycroft another text he knows he won’t respond to, and Sebastian spares him another glance before heading out the door._

 

_“That Mr. Holmes, is he trying to recruit you?” he asks._

 

_That sends Jim into a peal of laughter._

 

_“What, ask me to use my skills for the ‘greater good’? To fight the good fight? You can be hilarious sometimes, Sebastian,” Jim says._

 

_The sniper just shrugs and leaves._

 

"The shot was real, it couldn't have not been, not after how much Colonel Sebastian Moran had been provoked, but it didn't hit," Mycroft answers absentmindedly. 

 

“It wasn’t so much of a five-hour surgery as it was a long makeup and prosthesis session,” Mycroft says. “The anesthesia was real, and so was the disorientation when I came to.”

 

_Moran gets in the car after a smoke break, and Jim notices he’s just been on the phone as well, having taken his comms out for the moment._

 

_“You’re getting sloppy,” he tells Jim._

 

_“Fuck off,” Jim replies nonchalantly._

 

“It was a risk, but we didn’t expect the both of you, you and Sherlock, to refuse to leave, so Anthea made the call,” Mycroft says.

 

“So,” Mycroft says, glancing at Jim for a moment. “Where does that leave us?”

 

“Are you going to storm out now? Shoot me, or at  least threaten to?” Mycroft asks.

 

Jim knows he probably still looks dumbfounded.

 

“You’re insane,” he replies.

 

Mycroft raises an eyebrow.

 

“All this to, what? Bring me down?” Jim asks. He doesn’t believe it.

 

“Did you have fun toying with me?” Jim is equal parts hurt and curious. No, he’s more curious than hurt, so, so curious.

 

Mycroft looks thoughtful, remembering.

 

“The amnesia was mostly unplanned,” Mycroft says. “I hadn’t expected you to look so...afraid for me.”

 

“But. I can’t say it wasn’t interesting,” Mycroft says. “I also didn’t think you were the settling-down type.”

 

Jim can’t help but laugh, and laugh hysterically.

 

“God, it was so obvious,” he says.

 

“As I said, sentiment clouds our perception,” Mycroft responds. “Had it been anyone else, surely you and Sherlock would have figured it out immediately.”

 

“Well then,” Jim says, throws his arms open. “What are you going to do with me now that you’ve got me?”

 

Mycroft’s still paying more attention to the film than Jim, and maybe _that_ hurts.

 

“Oh hm, yes, what was it that you said, to join the good fight? That your skills might be put to better use, et cetera? I’m not opposed to that offer,” Mycroft says. “You do have many talents and I fear they are being wasted consulting petty criminals when there are much bigger fish abroad, as the little chase your sniper has led you on no doubt has made clear.”

 

Jim sinks back into his seat, turns to face the screen again. He’s speechless.

 

“I’m happy to let you think it over,” Mycroft says after a moment.

 

“Fuck you,” Jim replies, without any real heat.

 

Mycroft doesn’t answer.

 

“That was fucked up, even for you,” Jim says, not without some wonder. “It was cruel.”

 

“Hm,” is his only reply.

 

“It was...so unlike you,” Jim continues.

 

“Really? Letting you and my brother do all the work for me while I sit back and scarcely have to lift a finger, that doesn’t sound like me?” Mycroft asks. He hums a bit, contemplating it. “Thought you knew me a little better than that. I’m not sure how I feel.”

 

The movie continues to play. At a loss for words, they continue to watch. Even through the end credits.

 

The screen is black when Jim finally speaks.

 

“I’m keeping the ring.”

 

Mycroft sets his mug back on the tray before getting up.

 

“Are you sure you don’t want me to get you one?” he asks, before turning to head to his rooms, not even waiting for Jim’s response. “You’ve also gone through all the trouble of inventing a story for us, which does save me a lot of time courting you. I wouldn't want it to go to waste.”

 

Jim just stares, wide-eyed at him. Mycroft’s made it to the hallway by the time he remembers his voice.

 

“Are you serious?” Jim calls out after him. Mycroft just gives him a small smile, not innocent or vulnerable now but knowing, from the hallway before he turns away to head down it.

 

“Mycroft,” Jim calls out again, louder this time. “Mycroft, are you serious?”

 

He scrambles up to go after him, because evidently he isn’t being kicked out, or really, isn’t being made to do anything so far.

 

“Yes, I want one,” Jim answers, voice carrying down the hall, and he wants to hear Mycroft’s response.

 

Jim follows him down the hall, where Mycroft’s own rooms are at the very end of it. He realizes it’s weird to be flattered at the moment, but he is, a little bit, nonetheless.

 

“Mycroft! Are you serious?” Jim calls again. Mycroft’s already disappeared into his rooms, but the door is left open.


	5. epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> comments-inspired very short epilogue

 

They're sitting on a private jet when it occurs to Jim, not necessarily for the first time, that the man he's in love with is kind of a cold-hearted son of a bitch.

 

 _Love??,_ his mind helpfully supplies. Jim is going to have a panic attack on this plane.

 

Anyway, Mycroft is sitting beside him when it happens, and what prompts it is when Mycroft hands him a box.

 

A small ring box.

 

Wordlessly.

 

Jim tells himself not to get his hopes up as he takes the box in hand, and then immediately follows the reaction with a jolt of righteous indignation because _well, why not?_

 

He opens the box and the contents don't disappoint. It's unmistakably a wedding band, platinum with the thinnest threads of black opal interwoven through in a way that catches the light unexpectedly.

 

(If this is for work, Jim thinks, he's going to punch him.)

 

He turns to look at Mycroft, who has been watching silently with almost an apprehensive expression.  

 

“You're not even going to _ask_?” Jim says.

 

Mycroft’s eyebrows go up, because he can see Jim is serious. Then he surprises Jim by getting up, and taking position on bended knee, right on the floor of the jet before him.

 

And isn't that a heady sight. 

 

“From the very first moment I saw you,” Mycroft says, “you have fascinated me. And in this world,  that is akin to be struck by lightning twice in a row. “

 

“Mycroft Holmes, did you just use a simile for me, imprecise as they are?” Jim is trying very hard not to blush, and he knows it's not working. Mycroft doesn't comment on it.

 

“There has never been anyone I so more wanted to,” he pauses, and Jim waits.

 

“Capture,” is the word Mycroft finally settles on,  and Jim rolls his eyes. “But I wanted your heart too, and I wanted it fully.”

 

“Forgive me for having made you wait, Jim, I was afraid that I had I not arranged things perfectly, I wouldn't have been enough for you,” Mycroft says.

 

Another pause. Jim wonders whether he's run out of things to say, or if he's yet again just crippled by perfectionism.

 

“Will you marry me?” Mycroft finally asks.

 

The “yes” Jim responds with is barely audible.  Then he hands the box back to make Mycroft put the ring on for him instead of doing it himself.

 

Jim is preoccupied with examining his hand, and when he looks up again he catches Mycroft watching him, still on one knee.

 

“Well? Can I get up now?” Mycroft asks.

 

Jim smirks.

 

“I can think of a few other things you can do down there,” he responds.

 

Mycroft looks considering for a moment, then shakes his head. “I think not. But we can make a stopover in Paris, if you’d like.”

 

“No!” Jim gasps, and sort of knees Mycroft in the shoulder. “ _I_ came up with that. _You_ have to arrange something this time.”

 

Mycroft rubs his shoulder, gives Jim a look, and then gets up.

 

“Any preference as to the location?” he asks.

 

“Surprise me,” Jim says. “After all, you're probably the only one who can.”

 

Mycroft gives him a wry smile.

 

“You're awfully high maintenance,” he says, but in jest, so Jim just gives him a very smug look in return. “You’re lucky I love you so much.”

 

Oh _that’s_ new. Jim shrieks to himself to not say something stupid like _thanks_ and racks his brain for a reply that won't give away how out of his depth he is.

 

“Thanks,” he ends up saying anyway, at least somewhat mollified that it come out a little sarcastic. “You _reeeally_ show it, Iceman.”

 

Mycroft raises an eyebrow. “And here I thought you enjoyed that.”

 

Jim has to fight the smile forming on his lips.

 

“I really do.”

  
  
  
  



	6. another one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ds themes and dubious everything

 

  
"Do you trust me?" he asks.

Jim looks at the sliver of cloth in Mycroft's hand and finds it difficult to swallow. He nods. Mycroft raises an eyebrow.

"Yes, I trust you," Jim says, almost a rasp.

"Good," Mycroft replies, in that slow, blase way of his.

Jim holds still as Mycroft slips the satin-lined blindfold over his eyes, around his head, then knots it securely. Jim bites his lip as he feels the cool, smooth cloth settled over his eyelids. The anticipation has just as much to do with it as the fact that he can't see Mycroft's expression, can't read his body language, despite being less than a foot away.

"Take off your shirt," Mycroft says. The lazy intonation almost makes it sound like a suggestion, but Jim knows it's anything but.

Jim brings his hands up to his throat, and it's a task he's done a million times without trouble, without looking, but somehow knowing he's being watched when he can't see makes him fumble more than usual.

One button. Two, three...

When he finally slips off the shirt, sliding it off his arms, he's already starving for a response. He drops the shirt off the side of the bed they're sitting on. Thankfully the trousers go faster. He struggles a bit, then, with the undergarments, wondering if it'll prompt a hand from Mycroft. Or even a word. Nothing.

Finally, when Jim is completely naked and sitting and waiting, he hears Mycroft undo his shirt cuffs, hears him roll up his sleeves, hears his own breath too loud in his ears.

"What you did, cheating the French president out of what would have been a lucrative position in negotiating with Belgium...that stunt you pulled leaking his memos, how do you think I should characterize such a stunt?" Mycroft asks.

Ooh. Jim shivers. Mycroft had given free reign to seal the deal and he'd done so, but not without creating great chaos and leading to an outcome none of the markets predicted.

But.

Was he mad?

He hadn't _seemed_ mad, earlier, when they parted ways with the President.

"Would you say it was naughty, Jim?" Mycroft asks, and Jim continues to wait. "Or very clever?"

Jim licks his lips. "But wasn't it both?" he answers, breathy. "I thought you would enjoy it."

Mycroft doesn't say anything, and Jim feels cheated he can't see if he's smiling. He makes a little noise of frustration, but still no response is forthcoming.

"Lie back," Mycroft finally orders, and Jim goes willingly.

He hears Mycroft shift on the bed, and then close a hand around an ankle. Jim sighs, just a short breath of relief.

Then Mycroft presses a gentle kiss to the bone and all Jim wants to do is squirm.

But he doesn't, because he knows all that will do is prolong the delay.

Mycroft presses another kiss about an inch higher, and then another and another, but achingly slow, as if he has all the time in the world to cover Jim in kisses. He stops just above the knee and holds his breath and it takes everything Jim has to not move.

He's wondering whether he's missed another one of those perfect, knowing, little smiles again when Mycroft lays one hand on his knee, the other on the opposite inner thigh and shushes him.

"Shh, don't worry, Jim, I can hear you worrying. Just feel," Mycroft murmurs, soothing as much as he is reprimanding.

Mycroft runs his hand back and forth, gentle, but effectively holding Jim's legs apart like this, and Jim feels like a doll, like a toy to be used and played with, and oh. Oh that’s what's coming.

He's going to be a mindless wreck by the end of the night.

And he's going to love every moment of it.

It's not until he hears Mycroft uncap a bottle that he realizes he's already hard, because that's hardly important anymore, is it, when he has the weight of Mycroft's full attention dedicated to reducing him to a whimpering mess.

Velvety soft fingers and lips dance upward and caress his thighs to part them, and then it's wet and slippery the next moment.

Mycroft's fingers, soaked and unyielding, demand entrance that Jim wants nothing more than to give.

He breaches Jim with his middle finger and Jim clenches a hand against the sheets, he can tell which finger, which hand, how Mycroft is leaning over him, into him, and he shushes him again, placing a kiss to Jim's brow, before smoothing back his hair.

"You're perfect," Mycroft says, low, close to his ear, and Jim lets out a breath he didn't realize he was holding.

Another kiss, pressed to Jim's obscured eyelid, and then he starts to move. He kisses Jim on the mouth this time, and Jim barely even registers the sound of the bottle being uncapped again.

Mycroft's finger, deft as they are, easily finds that spot in Jim that sends sparks up and down his spine.

He takes his sweet time with Jim, then, talking about _gorgeous_ he is and the beautiful planes of his body as if he is a work of art Mycroft keeps locked away but has rewarded himself by taking it out to admire. 

He waxes lyrical about how _clever_ Jim has been, how artfully he renders order and chaos on a canvas of his own making, how good he is at creating new rules that he needn't follow the existing ones.

Jim's dripping, leaking, as Mycroft massages his prostate, milking him expertly and pulling away to scissor Jim open with two fingers instead whenever he gets close, and he gets _so_ close, but Mycroft keeps him on edge, and there's nothing but sensation now, he's nothing but nerve endings, he's nothing but. a pendulum swing between too much and too little, and with each wave toward the precipice there's more and more and more focus, focus, _focus_.

There's just one thing he wants.

"Mycroft- please, _please_ \- can I-" Jim pants, hardly in control of his own voice anymore.

"Yes, you can touch," Mycroft murmurs, acquiesing. But instead of reaching for himself his hands fly up, grasping for purchase until he's able to wrap his arms around Mycroft's neck, to run his hands through his hair, to drag him down for a kiss and drink him in.

"Mycroft," he manages to gasp between kisses. "Mycroft, Mycroft _mycroft_ -"

His orgasm shakes through him and he must collapse completely, but Jim can't say for sure, because now it's just him and the darkness, and then the darkness overtakes even him.

When he comes to again, he can tell they've moved. The threads against his skin aren't the sheets from Mycroft’s bed. But Mycroft is there, a weight on the edge of the bed.

He opens one eye at a time, slow, thankful for the dim lighting in what must be a hotel room of some sort.

He rolls over onto his back rather than his side, and spots Mycroft smiling down at him. In his waistcoat. Looking all perfect without a hair out of place.

Jim makes grabby hands.

Then he frowns and makes a disgustingly disappointed noise when instead of coming within arms reach so Jim can feel him, Mycroft hands him a bottle of water.

He takes it finishes off almost all of it in one go.

Then before he can begrudgingly be thankful, Mycroft leans close enough to hug so that he doesn't have to be.

"How are you feeling?" he asks, happy to let Jim hang on like a limpet.

Jim blinks and realizes he's wearing some sort of sleeping robe and takes in the decor in the room, and oh, they must be in Asia. Japan. Some scenic resort far from the city and entrenched in nature, judging by the size of the room. The window has its curtain  drawn, but must offer a spectacular view.

He's absolutely sure that when he passed out, they were still in London.

"Did you drug me?" Jim asks, slowly, sounding genuinely surprised.

Mycroft's hesitation is very telling.

Jim draws back so he can get a good look at Mycroft's face.

"I used what they'd developed for my so-called coma," he says, as if _that's_ what Jim really cares about. "There should be no lasting effects."

Jim stares.

"Well I certainly can't say I'm _not_ surprised," he finally says. Kidnapped for his honeymoon. Figures. Hilarious that he used to think that he might be the one to melt away Mycroft's defenses, leaving his ooey-gooey-melted heart within Jim's grasp, letting him dote on him. He hadn't realized how he craved the reverse.

Curiosity gets the best of him and he pushes up from the bed to go over to the window. He spins around half way and tugs at his robe, glancing at Mycroft.

"This belongs to the hotel," Jim says. "So what did you do, wrap me up in a sheet and carry me onto the plane?"

Mycroft cracks a smile, fond and a bit possessive, and says, "more or less."

Jim finds he doesn't even care if Mycroft's kidding or not.

He pulls open the curtain and sees that it's morning and spring in Kyoto is indeed a beautiful sight. Stands there for some moments just to take it in, not turning even as he hears Mycroft approach.

He leans down to press a kiss to the back of his neck. When Jim shivers, he wraps his arms around him.

"Happy anniversary," he murmurs.

"What?" Jim asks. The proposal was only a month ago.

"Eleven years ago, when we first met," he says. "You sat down in front of me and I wanted nothing more than to say yes. "

Jim startles, and scrambles to turn around despite the difficulty of doing so within Mycroft's grasp. Then grabs his face and kisses him.

"Take me now," he demands, aware how ridiculous he sounds. It's fine. Ridiculous feelings call for ridiculous measures. Mycroft gives Jim a wry smile.

"You really haven't recovered yet," he says.

"I don't _caaare_ ," Jim protests.

"Yes, you will," Mycroft says. "Maybe a bath instead?"

Jim sighs noisily.

"Fiiiiiiine."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They're at breakfast later and Jim LOLs at Mycroft whenever he drops something with his chopsticks then asks if Mycroft can find a kimono somewhere, one of those really elaborate ones, and put it on so Jim can fuck him in it. Mycroft tells him he'll consider it.


End file.
